The Travel Memoir Review

A heartfelt, poignant adventure of a young Canadian woman enduring hardship and finding romance in The Land of the Thunder Dragon

Review by Sam Baldwin

• Author: Jamie Zeppa
• Book First Published: 2000
• Publisher: Doubleday Canada
• Rating: ★★★

How our ratings work:

★★★ – We loved it. Highly recommended, even if you’re not specifically interested in the location
★★☆ – We liked it. Recommended, especially if you’re interested in the location
★☆☆ – We didn’t like it. But it may still appeal to those interested in the location

The Gist

Few Westerners have lived in Bhutan. Fewer still have written about the experience. So we’re fortunate to have Zeppa’s fascinating and heartfelt account of her nine-year stay in The Land of the Thunder Dragon. Arriving as a 23-year-old, we join Zeppa on her journey to adapt, and eventually thrive, in a region that is beautiful but tough, high in a Himalayan village, a long way from her Canadian home.

The Guts

On the surface we get a deep look into everyday life in a very remote, Bhutanese village. It’s a place of great beauty, dramatic landscapes, powerful storms and poverty, where mud walls, landslides and getting bitten by street dogs are the norm.  

Zeppa admirably adapts to her simple living quarters, where there’s no running water and no electricity. Dark, dank, and crawling with mice and fleas, the roof leaks when it rains. She captures well the disorientation – which borders on buyer’s remorse – of arriving somewhere so uncomfortably alien, you question why you came.

Zeppa’s day to day life working at the school, and her forays to other parts of Bhutan, provide a solid education on the lay of the land, the languages, and history of the country. But like any good travel memoir writer, Zeppa takes us on an inner journey too. There are themes of fitting in, loneliness, and the struggles of adapting to life where a hot shower is a rarity. There is also a love story, which provides the most poignant arc in the narrative.

Zeppa is a deep thinker and constantly asks herself questions that anyone who has experienced life beyond their own borders – in Bhutan or elsewhere – will relate to.

Would she associate with the motley crew of foreigners that she befriended so quickly, had she met them back home?

Is her presence causing unintended consequences that do more harm than good?

After she starts paying neighbours for the fresh vegetables they bring for free, Zeppa realises she has affected the natural order:

“I have upset something, changed expectations, brought something foreign into the picture. I have created a transaction.”

It’s self-aware observations like this that give Zeppa’s writing an added intelliegence; she sees how the visitor is changed by the host country, but also how the host country is changed by the visitor.

Why read Beyond The Sky And the Earth?

For those with even the slightest interest in Bhutan, Beyond the Sky and the Earth is of course mandatory reading.  But this book has much wider appeal. It’s a relatable tale for anyone who has spent time living far away from their homeland. Anyone intrigued to know what it’s like to adapt to a life stripped of modern comforts and conveniences. And anyone who has tangled in a cross-cultural romance.

Heartfelt and affecting, this is a powerful account that will stay with you long after you read the last page.